On Slogans

Written: Written in mid-July 1917
Published:
Published in pamphlet form in 1917 by the Kronstadt Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.).
Published according to the pamphlet text.
Source:Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 25,
pages 185-192.
Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive.
2002
You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
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Too often has it happened that, when history has taken a sharp
turn, even progressive parties have for some time been unable to
adapt themselves to the new situation and have repeated slogans
which had formerly been correct hut had now lost all
meaning—lost it as “suddenly” as the sharp
turn in history was “sudden”.

Something of the sort seems likely to recur in connection with
the slogan calling for the transfer of all state power to the
Soviets. That slogan was correct during a period of our
revolution—say, from February 27 to July 4—that has
now passed irrevocably. It has patently ceased to be correct
now. Unless this is understood, it is impossible to understand
anything of the urgent questions of the day. Every particular
slogan must be deduced from the totality of specific features of
a definite political situation. And the political situation in
Russia now, after July 4, differs radically from the situation
between February 27 and July 4.

During that period of the revolution now past, the so-called
“dual power” existed in the country, which both
materially and formally expressed the indefinite and
transitional
condition of state power. Let us not forget that the issue of
power is the fundamental issue of every revolution.

At that time state power was unstable. It was shared, by
voluntary agreement, between the Provisional Government and the
Soviets. The Soviets were delegations from the mass of
free—i.e., not subject to external coercion—and
armed workers and soldiers. What really mattered was
that arms were in the hands of the people and that there was
no coercion of the people from without. That is what opened
up
and ensured a peaceful path for the progress of the
revolution. The slogan “All Power Must Be Transferred to
the
Soviets” was a slogan for the next step, the immediately
feasible step, on that peaceful path of development. It was a
slogan for the peaceful development of the revolution, which was
possible and, of course, most desirable between February 27 and
July 4 but which is now absolutely impossible.

Apparently, not all the supporters of the slogan “All
Power Must Be Transferred to the Soviets” have given
adequate thought to the fact that it was a slogan for peaceful
progress of the revolution—peaceful not only in the sense
that nobody, no class, no force of any importance, would then
(between February 27 and July 4) have been able to resist and
prevent the transfer of power to the Soviets. That is not
all. Peaceful development would then have been possible, even in
the sense that the struggle of classes and parties
within the Soviets could have assumed a most peaceful
and painless form, provided full state power had passed to the
Soviets in good time.

The latter aspect of the matter has similarly not yet received
adequate attention. In their class composition, the Soviets were
organs of the movement of the workers and peasants, a ready-made
form of their dictatorship. Had they possessed full state power,
the main shortcoming of the petty-bourgeois groups, their chief
sin, that of trusting the capitalists, really would have been
overcome, would have been criticised by the experience of their
own measures. The change of classes and parties in power could
have proceeded peacefully within the Soviets, provided the
latter wielded exclusive and undivided power. The contact
between all the Soviet parties and the people could have
remained stable and unimpaired. One must not forget for a single
moment that only such a close contact between the Soviet parties
and the people, freely growing in extent and depth, could have
helped peacefully to get rid of the illusion of petty-bourgeois
compromise with the bourgeoisie. The transfer of power to the
Soviets would not, and could not, in itself have changed the
correlation of classes; it would in no way have changed the
petty-bourgeois nature of the peas ants. But it would have taken
a big and timely step towards
separating the peasants from the
bourgeoisie, towards
bringing them closer to, and then uniting them with, the
workers.

This is what might have happened had power passed to the Soviets
at the proper time. That would have been the easiest and the
most advantageous course for the people. This course would have
been the least painful, and it was therefore necessary to fight
for it most energetically. Now, however, this struggle, the
struggle for the timely transfer of power to the Soviets, has
ended. A peaceful course of development has be come
impossible. A non-peaceful and most painful course has begun.

The turning-point of July 4 was precisely a drastic change in
the objective situation. The unstable condition of state power
has come to an end. At the decisive point, power has passed into
the hands of the counter-revolution. The development of the
parties on the basis of the collaboration of the petty-bourgeois
Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties and the
counter-revolutionary Cadets has brought about a situation in
which both these petty-bourgeois parties have virtually become
participants in and abettors of counter revolutionary
butchery. As the struggle between parties developed, the
unreasoning trust which the petty bourgeoisie put in the
capitalists led to their deliberate support of the
counter-revolutionaries. The development of party relations has
completed its cycle. On February 27, all classes found
themselves united against the monarchy. After July 4, the
counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, working hand in glove with
the monarchists and the Black Hundreds, secured the support of
the petty-bourgeois Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks,
partly by intimidating them, and handed over real state power to
the Cavaignacs, the military gang, who are shooting
insubordinate soldiers at the front and smashing the Bolsheviks
in Petrograd.

The slogan calling for the transfer of state power to the
Soviets would now sound quixotic or mocking. Objectively it
would be deceiving the people; it would be fostering in them the
delusion that even now it is enough for the Soviets to
want to take power, or to pass such a decision, for power to be
theirs, that there are still parties in the Soviets which have
not been tainted by abetting the butchers, that it is possible
to undo what has been done.

It would be a profound error to think that the revolutionary
proletariat is capable of “refusing” to support the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks against the
counter-revolution by way of “revenge”, so to speak,
for
the support they gave in smashing the Bolsheviks, in shooting
down soldiers at the front and in disarming the workers. First,
this would be applying philistine conceptions of morality to the
proletariat (since, for the good of the cause, the
proletariat will always support not only the vacillating petty
bourgeoisie but even the big bourgeoisie); secondly—and
that is the important thing—it would be a philistine
attempt to obscure the political substance of the situation by
“moralising”.

And the political substance is that power can no longer be taken
peacefully. It can be obtained only by winning a decisive
struggle against those actually in power at the moment, namely,
the military gang, the Cavaignacs, who are relying for support
on the reactionary troops brought to Petrograd and on the Cadets
and monarchists.

The substance of the situation is that these new holders of
state power can be defeated only by the revolutionary masses,
who, to be brought into motion, must not only be led by the
proletariat, but must also turn their backs on the
Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties, which have
betrayed the cause of the revolution.

Those who introduce philistine morals into politics reason as
follows: let us assume that the Socialist-Revolutionaries and
Mensheviks did commit an “error” in supporting the
Cavaignacs, who are disarming the proletariat and the
revolutionary regiments; still, they must be given a chance to
“rectify” their “error”; the
rectification of the “error” “should not be
made difficult” for them; the swing of the petty
bourgeoisie towards the workers should be facilitated. Such
reasoning would be childishly naive or simply stupid, if not a
new
deception of the workers. For the swing of the petty-bourgeois
masses towards the workers would mean, and could only mean, that
these masses had turned their backs upon the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. The
Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties could now rectify
their “error” only by denouncing Tsereteli, Chernov,
Dan and Rakitnikov as the butchers’ aides. We are wholly
and unconditionally in favour of their “error” being
“rectified” in this way....

We said that the fundamental issue of revolution is the issue of
power. We must add that it is revolutions that show us at every
step how the question of where actual power lies is
obscured, and reveal the divergence between formal and real
power. .That is one of the chief characteristics of every
revolutionary period. It was not clear in March and April 1917
whether real power was in the hands of the government or the
Soviet.

Now, however, it is particularly important for class- conscious
workers to soberly face the fundamental issue of revolution,
namely, who holds state power at the moment? Consider its
material manifestations, do not mistake words for deeds, and you
will have no difficulty in finding the answer.

Frederick Engels once wrote the state is primarily contingents
of armed men with material adjuncts, such as
prisons.[1]
Now it is the military cadets and the
reactionary Cossacks, who have been specially brought to
Petrograd, those who are keeping Kamenev and the others in
prison, who closed down Pravda, who disarmed the
workers and a certain section of the soldiers, who are shooting
down an equally certain section of the soldiers, who are
shooting down an equally certain section of troops in the
army. These butchers are the real power. The Tseretelis and
Chernovs are ministers without power, puppet Ministers, leaders
of parties that support the butchery. That is a fact. And the
fact is no less true because Tsereteli and Chernov themselves
probably “do not approve” of the butchery, or
because their papers timidly dissociate themselves from it. Such
changes of political garb change nothing in substance.

The newspaper of 150,000 Petrograd voters has been closed
down. The military cadets on July 6 killed the worker Voinov for
carrying Listok “Pravdy” out of the
printers’. Isn’t that butchery? Isn’t that the handiwork of
Cavaignacs? But neither the government nor the Soviets are to
“blame” for this, they may tell us.

So much the worse for the government and the Soviets, we reply;
for that means that they are mere figureheads, puppets, and that
real power is not in their hands.

Primarily, and above all, the people must know the
truth—they must know who actually wields state
power. The people must be told the whole truth, namely, that
power is in the hands of a military clique of Cavaignacs
(Kerensky, certain generals, officers, etc.), who are supported
by the bourgeois class headed by the Cadet Party, and by all the
monarchists, acting through the Black Hundred papers, Novoye
Vremya, Zhivoye Slovo, etc., etc.

That power must be overthrown. Unless this is done, all talk of
fighting the counter-revolution is so much phrase-mongering,
“self-deception and deception of the people”.

That power now has the support both of the Tseretelis and
Chernovs in the Cabinet and of their parties. We must explain to
the people the butcher’s role they are playing and the fact that
such a “finale” for these parties was inevitable
after their “errors” of April 21, May 5, June 9 and
July 4 and after their approval of the policy of an offensive, a
policy which went nine-tenths of the way to predetermining the
victory of the Cavaignacs in July.

All agitational work among the people must be reorganised to
ensure that it takes account of the specific experience of the
present revolution, and particularly of the July days, i. e.,
that it clearly points to the real enemy of the people, the
military clique, the Cadets and the Black Hundreds, and that it
definitely unmasks the petty-bourgeois parties, the
Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties, which played and
are playing the part of butcher’s aides.

All agitational work among the people must be reorganised so as
to make clear that it is absolutely hopeless to expect the
peasants to obtain land as long as the power of the military
clique has not been overthrown, and as long as the
Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties have not been
exposed and deprived of the people’s trust. That would be a very
long and arduous process under the “normal”
conditions of capitalist development, but both the war and
economic
disruption will tremendously accelerate it. These are
“accelerators” that may make a month or even a week
equal to a year.

Two objections may perhaps be advanced against what has been
said above: first, that to speak now of a decisive struggle is
to encourage sporadic action, which would only benefit
the counter-revolutionaries; second, that their overthrow would
still mean transferring power to the Soviets.

In answer to the first objection, we say: the workers of Russia
are already class-conscious enough not to yield to provocation
at a moment which is obviously unfavourable to them. It is
indisputable that for them to take action and offer resistance
at the moment would mean aiding the counter-revolutionaries. It
is also indisputable that a decisive struggle will be possible
only in the event of a new revolutionary upsurge in the very
depths of the masses. But it is not enough to speak in general
terms of a revolutionary upsurge, of the rising tide of
revolution, of aid by the West-European workers, and so forth;
we must draw a definite conclusion from our past, from the
lessons we have been given. And that will lead us to the slogan
of a decisive struggle against the counter-revolutionaries, who
have seized power.

The second objection also amounts to a substitution of
arguments of too general a character for concrete realities. No
one, no force, can overthrow the bourgeois counter
revolutionaries except the revolutionary proletariat. Now, after
the experience of July 1917, it is the revolutionary proletariat
that must independently take over state power. Without that the
victory of the revolution is impossible. The only
solution is for power to be in the hands of the proletariat,
and for the latter to be supported by the poor peasants or
semi-proletarians. And we have already indicated the factors
that can enormously accelerate this solution.

Soviets may appear in this new revolution, and indeed are bound
to, but not the present Soviets, not organs
collaborating with the bourgeoisie, but organs of revolutionary
struggle against the bourgeoisie. It is true that even then we
shall be in favour of building the whole state on the model of
the Soviets. It is not a question of Soviets in general, but of
combating the present counter-revolution and the
treachery of the present Soviets.

The substitution of the abstract for the concrete is one of the
greatest and most dangerous sins in a revolution. The present
Soviets have failed, have suffered complete defeat, because they
are dominated by the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik
parties. At the moment these Soviets are
like sheep brought to the slaughterhouse and bleating pitifully
under the knife. The Soviets at present are powerless and
helpless against the triumphant and triumphing
counter-revolution. The slogan calling for the transfer of power
to
the Soviets might be construed as a “simple” appeal
for the transfer of power to the present Soviets, and to say that,
to appeal. for it, would now mean deceiving the people. Nothing is
more dangerous than deceit.

The cycle of development of the class and party struggle in
Russia from February 27 to July 4 is complete. Anew cycle is
beginning, one that involves not the old classes, not the old
parties, not the old Soviets, but classes, parties and Soviets
rejuvenated in the fire of struggle, tempered, schooled and
refashioned by the process of the struggle. We must look
forward, not backward. We must operate not with the old, but
with the new, post-July, class and party categories. We must, at
the beginning of the new cycle, proceed from the triumphant
bourgeois counter-revolution,which triumphed because the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks compromised with it,
and which can be defeated only by the revolutionary
proletariat. Of course, in this new cycle there will be many
and various stages, both before the complete victory of the
counter-revolution and the complete defeat (without a struggle)
of the Socialist- Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, and before a
new upsurge of a new revolution. But it will only be possible to
speak of this later, as each of these stages is reached.

Notes

[1]See Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property
and the State (Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works,
in three volumes, Vol. 3, Moscow, 1973, p. 327).